License for Theft Inquire Within
by puppetierin
Summary: Basically, I found these story ideas mouldering in some of my old folders, and I want them to have a nice home. :I All three are Konan- or- Hidan-centric. In a nutshell: Jashin talks to Konan in the afterlife, Hidan and Kakuzu run an underground business, possibly as part of a mob, and Konan is a guardian angel held captive by Madara. Come in if you need some inspiration, maybe?
1. Konan and Jashin walk into a bar

**more scraps. I ran across this while looking for something in a completely unrelated folder (I was _so paranoid_ about people finding my fic, lol), and I actually *loved* the concept. Even though the writing still sucks.**  
**In spite of the fact I'm no longer a part of fandom, I do check through the Konan stories about once a month, and I'd love to see someone who still loves the manga to maybe adopt one of my ideas. XD So... PM me if you see something you like, and I can bless you and all you endeavor for? xD  
**

* * *

When she came to, she was floating on a current of air. An invisible sun was bathing her in light-waves of gentle warmth, and she stretched, allowing every inch to be drenched. She had memories - very distant ones - of paper and blood and clouds and sometimes all three, but when she tried to seize one from her consciousness, they floated away, far out of reach. She gave up, and allowed herself to be bourne away.

And then, just when she was ready to truly fall asleep - for this had only been a brief respite from a longer dream of Death - she started to fall. Her eyes snapped open to see the world turned upside-down and warped with sleek tendrils of skyless night. They caught her, seized her, and dragged her into the darkness.

"They called you Angel, didn't they?" The voice that stirred her from unconsciousness was silky and powerful, each word spoken precisely, though with their endings lazily clipped off. She opened her eyes and they drifted about, bleary, before settling on the man before her. He smiled, clasped his hands and bobbed his head in a gesture of respect. She realized that she should probably do the same, but she was firmly ensconced in the darkness that had captured her an uncalculable time earlier. "Don't fight it," he warned, the smile slipping off his face. "It will erode your essence. That is all you are any more. You died a very long time ago. I must say, it was a spectacular departure. All of your destruction and hate, concentrated, released. Marvelous. I would have adopted you earlier, had I known you contained such malevolence, but - before you ask, we do have a mutual associate, and I have a reason for bringing you here. I would have had him explain it, but he is rather in awe of me." He chortled, mostly to himself.

* * *

**...  
**

**JASHIN Y'ALL. THE GUY IS JASHIN. I can't remember why Hidan was asking about Konan, though thinking about how ambiguously this sets the scene, it could probably go anywhere. Reincarnation somehow. A do-over. Alternate universe. Spirit sex. Whatever. (And now that I'm remembering all this jazz, go look up a picture called "This Sweet Blasphemy" on dA. It definitely had a hand in this.)**

**So, yeah. Let me know.  
**

**Naruto and all affiliated characters belong to Masashi Kishimoto, who I am not.  
**


	2. Hidan, control your mouth, really

**Another idea, RIPE for the using. Seriously y'all. Hey, I just met you, and this is crazy - but here's a story idea, so pm me maybe?**

* * *

Hidan entered the apartment of his landlord, and his attention was immediately drawn to the couch where a youngish man was reposing, a bloody towel held to his shoulder.

"You look really fucked-up, kid."

"Hidan, use your inside language," said Kakuzu from the kitchen.

"You do know the little punk's bleeding to death on your couch, right?" Hidan stared at the man, realizing that he looked vaguely familiar.

"He's paying for the towel and the upholstery. With interest." Kakuzu emerged from a nearby doorway with a fresh towel in his hand. He tossed it to the bleeding man, who accepted it mutely. "What do you want, Hidan?"

"Well, for starters, I'd like to know what the hell's going on," said Hidan, moving to sit in a questionable-looking recliner. "One of your grey moneymaking schemes?"

"He suggested it, not me," said Kakuzu. Pause. "Close the goddamn door behind you, Hidan!" He swore as he crossed to close the front door.

The injured man stirred. "Is he trustworthy...?"

"Yes," said Kakuzu. "Should he at any point lose my trust, well... I don't leave loose ends. Hidan, this is Itachi, my newest client. This is Hidan, my pain-in-the-ass of an associate." He started looking through a cabinet, and eventually emerged with a decanter of golden liquid and a cup.

"Itachi Uchiha? Kid, you're an Uchiha?" Itachi Uchiha nodded once, slowly. Blood was still spreading across the fresh towel. "Well, fuck me. What happened to you?"

"I'm getting him out of the country." Kakuzu poured the golden liquid and offered it to Itachi, who accepted and choked it down. "The Uchihas and their heir apparent seem to have been at odds for quite a while..."

The Uchihas had built Amergakure on a foundation of questionable business ventures and shady affiliations. It made sense: a city born rotten, lived rotten.

"Hmmm." Kakuzu lifted the towel and examined the wound. "We can't wait for treatment...Hidan, give me your phone..."

Fifteen minutes later, the three of them were on their way to the hospital. It was raining as they pulled up to the entrance, and there was someone waiting for them with a gurney. As Hidan helped Kakuzu lift the now-unconscious Itachi onto it, he noticed a wad of money pass quickly between Kakuzu and the man.

"Is everything ready, Kabuto?" said Kakuzu with a touch of irony as they entered the hospital.

"For what?" said Kabuto with a nasty chuckle. "I'll be consulting with a patient about a concussion for the next hour and a half..."

The hospital was dank and lit with yellow lights; Hidan, not entirely sure why he was there, took to wandering the hallways.

* * *

**Kakuzu as a shady businessman never fails to fill me with glee. This was all I had written, but I believe the original plot included Nagato and Yahiko dying, leaving Konan with a purpose vacancy, so she falls in with Hidan and the Amegakure underworld, and becomes tangled up in the runaway Uchiha business. (Love me some Konan / Any Uchiha At All.)**

**That's my plot though. PM me if you want to take it and reshape it in your image.  
**

**Please?**

**Naruto and all affiliated characters do not belong to me, but to Masashi Kishimoto.  
**


	3. Angels, Physics projects, crime, etc

**It's high school AU tiem!**

**Well. sort of.  
**

* * *

He wakes in darkness and falls asleep with darkness.

When he wakes again, he gets up and starts to walk through the night, looking for a star or a moon or something else to guide him.

A foot nudges his bruised ribs a few times and he stirs and moans, his eyes crusted shut with sleep.

"Wake up. Wake up, Hidan."

A heavy person crosses the room - he notices the quakes in the floorboards, though they seem like miles away - and tears the curtains open. Sunlight pours onto his body and squeezes red into his eyes. "Motherfucker!" screeches Hidan, hands scrabbling to pull a nonexistent blanket over his face.

The footsteps approach again and pause disdainfully above him, not blocking the light in the least.

"You're missing the morning services," says the owner of the feet coolly.

"T'hell with that," says Hidan, but he manages to prop himself up with an arm and runs one hand through his dirty hair. "Close the goddamn curtains, will you? I'm a motherfucking albino. Did the hair not tip you off, asshole?"

"Grow up," says Kakuzu, tossing him a bundle of cleaner-looking clothing and a towel still damp from its last use. "And clean yourself up. We're running a job, you remember that, right?"

"Yeah, yeah."

"Hop to it."

"Man, we have got to get this project done."

"We should go over to someone's house after school," said Itachi, looking over the rubric to see what was left. There are very few checkmarks. "Kisame?"

"My house is in absolutely no state to have company, sorry guys," says Kisame, rubbing the back of his head awkwardly. "Itachi, how about you?" "I don't think so," says Itachi. "My brother is having a party today. Pein?"

The redhead looks up and stares at Itachi, looking a little uncomfortable, his grey eyes shifty.

"I guess so," he said. "I'd have to call ahead, though."

"Whatever works, man," says Kisame. "Where are we meeting after school?"

"Under the flag," says Itachi. "I'll have to stop at my locker to pick up all the stuff. Who drives?"

"I drove this morning," says Pein. "It's cool."

"All right! See you guys after the final bell, then."

Pein bounces his cell up and down on his palm as he waits outside the school. The reception was poor, and he couldn't even phone home. Oh well. It wouldn't happen again, that he would be sure of...

Kisame and Itachi emerge from the front door of the school, each carrying bulging bags. "We in the clear?" asks Kisame as Itachi sets down the bags and rubs his hands together to get the blood flowing again. "Oh yeah," lies Pein. "My car's over here... this is all of it?" Itachi nods and picks up the bags again. The three of them start walking towards the student parking lot. "Shotgun," says Kisame. Itachi pauses for a second, but then catches up. "Whatever."

Pein's house surprises Itachi and Kisame. Large and sprawling, it has an even larger and more sprawling lawn, well-tended and filled with beautiful gardens.

"Man-oh-man," says Kisame as the car stops and Pein pulls the keys out of the ignition. "Do you have your own movie theater and everything?"

"What? No." Pein looks momentarily distracted. "Madara isn't... well... this house is more for the clients than us. It gives a good impression or something."

"Madara?" murmurs Itachi, slipping out of the backseat and following the other two up the front walk and onto a porch that wrapped around the house.

"Yeah." Pein opens the door and holds it for the other two. "Let's work in the basement... so we don't annoy him if he's here..." He leads them through a foyer and down a flight of stairs. He leaves Itachi and Kisame to set down their backpacks uneasily against the posh leather couches and ottomans. "I'll go get some snacks, and you can get the stuff out of the car. I think I left the trunk unlocked."

"Okay." Itachi exchanges a look with Kisame as Pein retreats up the stairs. "Kind of an odd duck," says Kisame out of the corner of his mouth. "Don't be rude to our host," replies Itachi. "Let's just go get the stuff."

Their conversation begins to flow more freely as they emerge into the afternoon air. "Madara," says Itachi. "That name is... very familiar." Kisame shrugs. "Whatever. This is probably the only time we'll ever be let in here. Did you see how reluctant he was to let us in? What's he got to hide, huh?"

"It's none of our business," says Itachi, opening the trunk and reaching in for the luggage.

Two hours, three cans of Monster and a boring physics project later, a bathroom is the only prospect of relief. "Hey, where's the can?" says Kisame. Itachi is still fiddling with the measurements of their structure and Pein is weighing some blocks with an unusually alert eye. "Upstairs, on the right," says Pein vaguely, his eyebrows furrowed in concentration.

It's amazing how quickly he becomes lost. _On the right._ Good God. He'd somehow gotten lost in a maze of tastefully-decorated halls and carefully-closed doors, and something about the way Pein mentioned Madara - his foster father, or adopted father, or something, Kisame remembered - made him keen to avoid confronting him. _"Madara isn't... well..."_

A shiver runs up his spine and he twitches. Just when he spots a door to what looks like the outside and is about to make a run for it, the sound of soft feet padding across the floor around a nearby corner makes him stop. He's paralyzed until he hears the quiet _whish-whish_ of a broom sweeping - Madara, whoever he was, would not do housework himself. A cleaning person would probably be safer to ask directions from.

He leans around the corner and is taken utterly by surprise by what awaits him.

It's a girl, maybe a little older than him, dressed in nondescript clothing. Her hair (a shade of black that shines blue, not unlike his own) covers her downturned face, and her stick-thin arms push the broom weakly. A pair of large, feathery wings extend from her shoulders. They might have been white at one point, but dirt and something else has smudged them to grey. The lower halves of her wings seem to be caked in blood, and weights rest on their crests.

As Kisame watches, jaw slack, she turns around, eyes glued to the floor. She approaches him, broom sweeping listlessly, until only a few feet in front of him - then, at least, she seems to notice his presence. Her look of shock mirrors his own.

"Oh, um... hi," says Kisame, unsure of how to address a mythical creature. To his bemusement, a look of recognition dawns across her gaunt face.

"What are you doing here?" she whispers, voice hoarse and creaky.

"I got lost on the way to the bathroom," he says dumbly.

"Oh," she says, as though she would never considered that. "Where were you coming from?"

"The basement." She nods and seizes his hand and starts pulling him along with a strength he never would have guessed she possessed. They skid along a few corridors until she deposits him in the foyer. She makes a "sssh" gesture with her hands and points to one room, mouthing, "bathroom," and then to one open ajar - the stairs to the basement.

"Thanks," whispers Kisame. "How can I-"

She shakes her head, gives him a slight push towards the doors and hurries away.

* * *

**Oh my God, I'd forgotten how much I adored this idea. Mostly because it's so Diana Wynne Jones influenced. Konan is an angel, assigned to look over several different individuals, including Pein. Madara, Because Of Reasons, learns of this and sets about capturing her. (He might have lost his years ago because he damned himself somehow. Idk.) Pein falls in love with her, and tries to keep her a secret from the world. This works until Kisame, whom she is supposed to be looking out for, runs into her, and takes an interest in freeing her. (Secret KisaKo shipper here.) Hidan figures into this by being an atheist grifting as a religious student, until he somehow runs into Konan too. (Kakuzu is one of her wards, and they've met; he rejected her help.)**

**I have absolutely no clue how it pans out. But goddamn I adored this plot.  
**

**You see, you like? PM ME FOR THE LOVE OF YOUR DEITY OF CHOICE.  
**

**Naruto and all affiliated characters belong to Masashi Kishimoto, not to me. Or else all this shit would have already happened good Lord.  
**


End file.
